by Diccon Bewes
Since leaving university I have been a bookseller, traveller, bookseller (again), travel writer, bookseller (yet again) and traveller (again). I finally decided to combine the two and write travel books that I could sell, if not myself then through other bookshops. I have lived in Bern, the Swiss capital, for the past eight years and can’t see any reason to leave just yet: the chocolate is far too good to say goodbye to. The success of my first book, Swiss Watching, meant that I could give up being a bookseller (although probably not for ever, if the past is anything to go by) and concentrate on writing – and speaking. An Englishman in Switzerland is no real novelty, but one who likes to talk knowledgeably about the Swiss (and make them laugh) is not that usual, especially if he does it in German, or as close to German as possible. I am the accidental expat expert.
So that’s our group of travellers: Jemima, Jenny, John, Thomas and me. Granted, we’re not the most normal of groups, but then this isn’t the most normal of trips. In the days of easyJet and Eurostar, who travels through Europe the hard way? We had no car or coach, no transfers or tour guides, and no real goal other than to follow in the footsteps of a travel giant. If it sounds a bit too unplanned to be a package tour, it’s how that first tour was as well. Looking back from this distance, it’s all too easy to impose on it our modern expectations and prejudices.
That first trip wasn’t organised to within an inch of its life, didn’t have planned excursions and wasn’t an exercise in group bonding. Thomas Cook admitted as much in The Excursionist:
It is not possible for us to mark out the exact course of travel from day to day after the arrival in Geneva. This must depend on local circumstances, the number of the party who choose to travel together, the modes of conveyance and other matters which cannot be foreseen.
The same applied to expenses – “it is impossible to give any accurate statement”.
Nevertheless, the tour was conducted, in the sense that Thomas Cook accompanied the participants, even if the conductor was more of an organiser than a guide. It was intended “to explore and examine, with a view to future and more enlarged operations”. Essentially, it was a recce, a fact-finding mission that happened to have paying guests as its guinea pigs. It could have been a total disaster, Carry On Heidi without the innuendo, but luckily it was a success. Those “future and more enlarged operations” turned out to be not a disturbing medical diagnosis but the travel industry as we know it. Without that tour it’s possible that we wouldn’t now have all-inclusive hotels in Jamaica, coach tours of Italy, stag parties in Tenerife or cruises down the Nile; not forgetting travel agencies, sleeping cars, brochures and traveller’s cheques. It all started with the Swiss.
And so, on with the trip. After living in Switzerland for so long, I do realise that I’ve become used to punctuality on public transport. Everything running on time is normal for the Swiss. So it’s odd to be back in a country where trains often have a mind of their own; odd but somehow rather comforting, the transport equivalent of beans on toast or Doctor Who. British rail timetables are evidently still more guideline than gospel, if the three-mile train ride between Seaford and Newhaven is anything to go by. But at least we get to the ferry terminal in time for the boat and can enjoy watching Newhaven slip away as we sail out of the harbour, past the marina and the breakwater, along the coast to admire the Seven Sisters and then out into the open sea. Next stop France – only four hours away.
Despite the sea crossing being longer than from Dover, the fact that Newhaven is only 56 miles from London made it a natural choice for a ferry link to France. A regular steamer service began in 1824 when the General Steam Navigation Company started sailing twice weekly in both directions. Once the train from London arrived in 1847, under the auspices of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, passenger numbers soared; by the 1860s 50,000 people a year were sailing this route across the Channel. In addition, Dieppe is much closer to Paris than is Boulogne or Calais (92 miles not 133), a distinct advantage in the days when travelling on land was as slow as at sea; a train ride through the fields of Normandy is also infinitely preferable to one through the flat expanse of northern France. No wonder Cook chose this route.
The Newhaven harbour records for 26 June 1863 show that the paddle steamer in operation that day was the Dieppe, and that the weather was fine with a fresh breeze, much as it is for our crossing 15 decades later. Apart from that, the two journeys could not be more different. First and second classes, tea and biscuits, sitting on coils of rope, sleeping under umbrellas – that was the essence of Miss Jemima’s crossing. It sounds uncomfortable but peaceful. Today, with 51 cabins, 5 lounges, a bar, a restaurant, a shop, a kids’ play area and up to 650 passengers and crew, ours is not a small ship. Most likely it’s more comfortable, and more hectic, than the old one, but it’s not particularly memorable. It could be any one of the giant car ferries that ply the Channel, taking bargain hunters to the French hypermarkets and holidaymakers to the sun. However, it does have touches of Gallic flair. The name – Côte d’Albâtre, or Alabaster Coast – refers to the coastline of Normandy, our destination today; the restaurant has couscous and lamb tajine on the menu; and the staff are as friendly as in any shop along the Champs-Elysées. It feels like France already.
One thing that hasn’t changed, and probably never will, is the temptation to indulge in some people-watching. Ferries are great places for that, as indeed is any form of public transport; Joanna Trollope once said that one of the best places for an author to research human behaviour, conversations and relationships is on board a London bus. And alongside the watching is the judging, something to which Miss Jemima was not immune:
“The members of the Junior United Alpine Club, remembering the German proverb that ‘None but Englishmen and madmen travel first class’, were all second-class passengers. … The swells being all in the fore cabin, we were driven to criticising those in the aft; who, but for the redeeming presence of those in the Club, would have been on the whole, voted second class in more senses than one. Yes, those two brown-hatted ladies sitting opposite, on the shady side of fifty, do not their features tell of endurance and patience? … Can you not picture their home? Thrifty but faded.”
Today there isn’t a hat of any colour to be seen among the female passengers, possibly due to the gusty wind as much as changes in fashion, although a few men are sporting a baseball cap. The stylistic rigours of nineteenth-century travellers are as alien to us as our communication methods would be to them. Men have, thankfully for me, ditched stiff collars and tweed jackets in favour of jeans and fleeces, cargo shorts and trainers. Women have exchanged their full-length dresses and sensible shawls for similar jeans and fleeces, cargo shorts and trainers.
As curious as our modern unisex clothes would be to Miss Jemima, it is the public displays of flesh, both male and female, that would shock her into stunned silence. Such scandalous behaviour was not the done thing in polite society. Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. Seeing acres of pasty skin slowly roasted to lobster red is bad enough on a beach in Spain; having to endure it on a ferry to France could induce sea-sickness. There is some on display today, but the windy conditions have made all but the hardiest few cover up, me included. Still, I’m enjoying every breath of salty air prickling my face. Having grown up near the Hampshire coast, the thing I miss most in Switzerland is the sea; as stunningly beautiful as they are, mountains simply don’t smell or feel the same.
Clothes aside, one other big difference between then and now is the presence of children. Our boat echoes to the sounds of their clattering feet and chattering voices, even outside their designated fun zones. An upstanding Victorian lady like Miss Jemima would probably blanch at youngsters being seen and heard in such numbers. As for travelling with your offspring in tow, such behaviour was actively discouraged by Thomas Cook himself:
Children in arms, under three years of age, travel free in both England and France, and from three to seven years of age they travel at half-price. We
hope that the infantile race will stop in the nurse’s arms and that the next grade above them, under seven, will not be taken to Switzerland.
The Continent was indeed a dangerous place for children, where men in black tempted them with lollipops and witches fattened them up for roasting. If not that, then they froze to death selling matches or were lured away for ever by pied pipers. Much better to stay in Britain, where they could be trained as pickpockets, chimney sweeps and factory workers. The past was definitely not a nice place to grow up.
Four hours of drinking, eating, chatting, reading, playing, screaming and (in my case) deep breathing later, the coastline of France drifts onto the horizon. These cliffs are not as high or as white as their English counterparts, but they are clearly cut from the same stone. The two ports, on the other hand, could not be more different: Dieppe is the cheese to Newhaven’s chalk. The closer we get, the more appealing it looks, with a wide beach, seafront promenade, castle and smart rows of houses.
Deboarding (which apparently is a word, if we believe the ship’s captain) seems so easy until our bags, which we had to check in when we boarded, do not arrive in the terminal with us. There’s no choice but to sit and wait. We have 25 minutes before the bus leaves for the town centre, but the longer we wait, the greater our chances are of missing it, and our direct train to Paris. To make things feel much worse, the terminal is enclosed by 2m high metal fences topped by rolls of barbed wire. A few passengers trade forlorn greetings and finger touches with relatives waiting for them on the other side, and I half expect a food parcel to come sailing over the top at any moment.
The bonus of being trapped in Camp Dieppe is that we have a chance to chat to our fellow inmates, and my mother is soon exchanging sighs and stories with an elegant but formidable woman in charge of a husband and two grandchildren. Listening to her reminisce, I learn how wonderful it was to arrive in Dieppe in the 1980s. The ship docked right in the middle of town and you disembarked straight into the Gare Maritime and a waiting train. But the French are never ones to let perfection stand in the way of progress, so the old ferry terminal was dismantled in the 1990s and this new one built out of town, without a station. Using this ferry is definitely not a good idea for two people with no transport, no transfer and no tour guide.
Advert from Murray’s Handbook, May 1861
We can see the bus stop on the other side of the wire fence, so near but so far. The bus arrives on time, but it doesn’t wait for anyone or anything; while it might be here purely for ferry passengers, it departs with no one on board, exactly as our bags arrive. Welcome to France!
Cook chose this route precisely because of its good train connections. His customers would have been able to change from boat to train with no hassle, but 150 years later we can’t, and nor can eight or nine others who also missed the bus. After a few minutes of common incredulity at our predicament, we all start walking into town.
Miss Jemima’s first brush with the Continent was very different. First, she had no passport. Such a document was not required for travel to most of the Continent, although Cook advised his customers to take one. Applicants simply had to write to Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and two shillings and two days later the passport would arrive in the post. Even then, one passport was enough for all those travelling together: “the names of all male persons must be stated, and the number of females given”. As antiquated as that sounds, at least women eventually got passports before they got the vote: the individual British passport as we know it, with a photo and a cardboard cover, arrived in 1915, followed by the old blue one in 1920 and the modern burgundy in 1988.
Not that any of that concerned Miss Jemima. She was more vexed that Miss Sarah’s Yorkshire tarts were subject to a tax of 50 cents by the douaniers, “more from disappointment that they were not invited to partake than from any right they had to levy it”. Once in town, she notes that Dieppe’s staple trade is “ivory carving, examples of which we saw in the shop windows”. Although Yorkshire tarts are probably still viewed with some suspicion, both the levy and ivory have disappeared from today’s Dieppe, as have the exuberant clothes Miss Jemima finds so captivating:
“Nothing in our entire route struck us as wearing a more foreign aspect than the varied groups of figures in motley costume awaiting our arrival on the pier. There were artisans in their loose blue blouses, soldiers in many uniforms, some of them most laughable, their capacious bloomer costume reaching to the centre of the calf of the leg, then four inches of buff leather, then a white gaiter of ample dimensions fitting like a tureen cover over the boot, while a shako jauntily tips off the whole.”
Throw in a gendarme in a cocked hat, a priest in a shovel hat and women in white mob caps and you can see what an impression the crowd made on her. No shakos to be seen today, although the French policeman’s kepi is surely a subdued descendant of this tall military hat that nineteenth-century armies loved so much, rather like a top hat that’s been pimped up with medals, bobbles and tassels.
At head height all might have been wondrous to behold, but down at shoe level it was not. The narrow streets “had the advantage of shade, but not of a local board of health, as their open gutters testified”. You can almost see Miss Jemima’s nose turning up in disgust. Don’t forget that this was exactly the period when Victorian Britain was investing its imperial wealth in public works. After the cholera epidemic of 1853–54 and the “Great Stink” of 1858, London cleaned up the Thames and transported its waste along sparkling new sewers to treatment works.
Dieppe no longer has open sewers, but its streets are still plagued by one very unsightly problem: they are full of crap, of the canine kind. I have no idea what the French feed their pets but whatever it is, it produces the most prodigious after-effects known to man, or dog. This is at its most unwelcome when trying to wheel a suitcase at speed, a feat that involves much swerving and jumping. I thought the blobs of chewing gum that plague Swiss streets were bad, but I’d rather have one of those caught on my suitcase wheels than dog poo.
So it’s with some relief that we arrive at the main station with clean wheels and a little time to spare. As we route-marched through town, we had but a passing glimpse of the old quayside where the boats used to dock, now restored to its picture-postcard prettiness. And we certainly had no time for tea, an obligatory stop for Cook’s group, although the café of “thoroughly foreign appearance” served tea that was “pronounced to be truly peculiar”. Maybe it’s just as well we skipped the tea break.
We bought two singles to Paris and were straight onto the train. Thank God we weren’t subjected to nineteenth-century French station etiquette:
None but the passengers are allowed to enter, who are locked in the salle d’attente until the arrival of the train, when they are let out in order of first, second and third classes.
Now I know where the budget airlines got the inspiration for their boarding procedures.
“I don’t care so much for Paris myself except as a place to see,” wrote William to his father. I have a shocking confession to make: I agree with him. Paris isn’t my favourite city, possibly only just making it into my Top Ten. I’ve been in springtime, in summer and in autumn, but I’ve failed to fall in love with it. It’s always left me not wanting more, but I keep going back in the hope that one day I’ll see the light in a city that everyone else loves (or says they do). Yes, there are parts of Paris that are wonderful: the windows of Sainte-Chapelle, the graves in Père Lachaise, brunch in the Marais, sunset at the Sacré Coeur. But despite these delightful ingredients, the overall dish leaves me as unsatisfied as some of the creations served in its bistros, where there’s more plate than food – all style and no substance.
But for once, I’m glad to arrive in the French capital. It is the light at the end of the tunnel that was a long day of constant travelling. We’d been on the go for ten hours, which is still eight hours less than Miss Jemima & Co. had to endure. Having left at 6am, they arrived in Paris a
fter midnight. Then again, they started in London, not Newhaven, and they stopped for a French cup of tea, so perhaps the timings aren’t so different after all. They stayed for all of five hours in Paris, not because they shared my view of the city – on the way back they stayed for five days – but because another 18-hour marathon lay ahead of them to reach Geneva. We can at least take our time and enjoy 18 hours in one place.
Outside the monumental Gare Saint-Lazare, we have to pick our way past the commuters and beggars dotted along the steps and the pavement; not so different from most stations in any other big city. It’s only a short walk to the hotel, and that couldn’t be more appropriately located. Just around the corner is a travel agency with a very familiar name: Thomas Cook. They obviously knew we were coming.
Paris to Geneva now takes a little over three hours, assuming you take the TGV or Train à Grande Vitesse, a real high-speed train that makes British ones look like snails. Travelling at such speed would be enough to give Thomas Cook apoplexy; he was warning customers 150 years ago:
[Paris to Geneva] will require some effort … but it is not really necessary for any to travel so fast if they feel it to be burdensome.
He was talking of 20mph, not the 200mph that is normal today. That might seem pedestrian to us, but for the Victorians such speeds were nothing short of miraculous – and quite enough. Any faster and women might faint or body parts be disrupted.
I have no such fears, so we are going on the 13.09 to Geneva. It’s the only train I pre-booked, mainly because train tickets have never been easier to book online, and never harder to understand. The price depends on how far in advance you book, how fast you go, where you sit, what day and time you travel, how old you are and if there’s an R in the month. Internet booking has revolutionised personal travel, but it sometimes makes my head spin with its limitless choices. While it may well be a fatal threat to travel agents like Thomas Cook, I can understand why some people still avoid the DIY route.